I’m glad I made use of the time I had before heading back to Pindara Private Hospital. It turned out to be quite a fun day in the scheme of things (punctuated by some of those ‘reality check’ moments) and keeping my mind occupied certainly helped curb the anxiety.
The operation didn’t begin until late afternoon, so it was very late by the time I was back chatting to Mum, Paul and friend Sarah – who walked in to find me bare chested! I wasn’t phased and was very happy not to see a ‘mangled’ boob. Dr D did promise it wouldn’t be ‘nightmare-ish’ and he’d do the best he could to make the remaining tissue resemble a breast. Still though – it was a rather odd, considerably flatter and my nipple seemed to want to point in a different direction!
Aesthetics aside – the aim of the surgery was to remove the cancerous tissue and achieve ‘clear margins’. Trusting he’d done everything possible to do that – I was pretty content.
When Dr D came to visit the following morning he told me there was in fact more cancer there than they thought, and it was a “flip of a coin as to whether I’d need a course of radiotherapy, or to undergo a mastectomy.” Big, but not surprising.
I had around a week to mull over that and let my body recover from its second anaesthetic in ten days, before we’d discuss again at my next appointment.
Encore Performances 
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